Thursday, November 17, 2011

Student Teacher

Last year I decided that it was about time that I gave back. I have been teaching about 10 years and have never had a student teacher. There seem to be many student teachers floating in and out at my school that the next time there was a request for teachers to mentor student teachers, I signed up. It may not have been my brightest idea in that I am teaching a new grade level this school year that I have never taught and so it is a learning curve for me also, but she came along for the ride.

I got my first student teacher about a month ago. This was only a five week experience; she will do her real student teaching, where she teaches solo for four weeks, in the spring. In this experience she was to teach two social studies lessons, two science lessons, and get use to transitions and see how different classrooms at different grade levels run. She has been wonderful, and I can totally see her in a classroom of her own someday. We have gotten along well, and we have been able to transition smoothly when teaching/handling the class.

Her last day is next week, and I will miss her. I do realize now that I somewhat miss having an assistant no matter who that person was. I like someone in the room to co-teach with me, to help me out with individual students, or to lend a hand with projects that need completed. I was lucky to have a good experience with my first student teacher.